Gripla - 20.12.2013, Page 12

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general assembly of his people at Aachen and among the various embas-
sies were envoys from the sons of Godofridus seeking peace with the
emperor.35
this combination of ecclesiastical and political involvement with the
danes took a decisive turn in the year 826, when Herioldus, his wife and a
great number of his entourage were baptised at st. Alban’s in Mainz, with
Louis himself acting as sponsor, and received at the emperor’s assembly
in Ingelheim, an imperial villa a short distance from Mainz. the emperor
presented Herioldus with many gifts, most notably the frisian county
Hriustri/Rüstringen.36 Present at the same well-attended assembly were
such luminaries as the envoy of the Holy Apostolic see and the Abbot of
Mount olivet, along with envoys of the sons of Godofridus, who hoped
to make a further bid for peace and alliance with Louis.37 In the short term,
according to Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii,38 this meeting led to Herioldus’s
provision of hospitality and support for Anskar, at Louis’s request. the
danish king’s contribution to the mission included the recruiting of boys,
some from Herioldus’s household, to receive a religious education and
continued until the final expulsion of Herioldus from power in 827 at the
hands of the sons of Godofridus.
In the following decade one of Godofridus’s sons, Horik/oricus (with
variant name forms in the annals), held the status of ‘the king of the danes’
where the franks were concerned and had many diplomatic contacts with
them.39 In an embassy of 839 oricus sent his nepos [‘nephew’] in the com-
pany of an especially trusted adviser and confidant. they brought gifts of
precious objects distinctive of their country, with the aim of consolidating
the alliance and lodging complaints about troublesome behaviour from the
frisians. they were cordially received and gifts were bestowed on them.40
In 841 Lothar I, the currently recognised emperor, presented Herioldus
35 Carolingian Chronicles, 118.
36 Annales Regni Francorum, 144; Carolingian Chronicles, 119. Cf. Adam of Bremen liber I, c.
17, in Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. f.j. tschan
(new york: Columbia university Press, 2002), 21–2.
37 Annales Regni Francorum, 144; Carolingian Chronicles, 119.
38 on the claims of this work to reliability, see Maund, ‘“A turmoil of Warring Princes”’,
31.
39 nelson, ‘the frankish empire’, 23.
40 Annales Bertiniani, in Quellen zur karolingischen Reichsgeschichte, 2:48; nelson, ‘the frankish
empire’, 47.